NEW DELHI: Indian batters Cheteshwar Pujara and Suryakumar Yadav after being missed out on the Indian squad for the West Indies tour, are added to the West Zone side for the Duleep Trophy starting on June 28 in Bengaluru, as per ESPNcricinfo.
Both the players have been brought in the place of Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad, who have been named in India’s Test squad against WI.
The Defending champions West Zone have entered directly into the semi-final which will be held on July 5 against the winner of the match between Central Zone and East Zone.
Pujara last featured in the World Test Championship (WTC) final between June 7 to June 12. However, he did not have an impactful outing in the match as he scored just 14 and 27 respectively in both innings. Much was expected from him after his amazing form for County side Sussex in County Championship.
After being dropped from the Indian squad, Pujara shared a video on his Twitter handle of his intense training session on Saturday.
[?] pic.twitter.com/TubsOu3Fah
— Cheteshwar Pujara (@cheteshwar1) June 24, 2023
Pujara has struck 7195 runs in 103 test matches with an average of 43.60. He has 19 centuries and 35 fifties under his belt in test format. He has played the best knock of 206* so far in his red-ball career.
Meanwhile, Suryakumar Yadav made a Test debut in the first match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia in February. But he was not given a chance in the remaining matches. (ANI)